Timeline for Did the UK pay for the prince's wedding?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
26 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 4, 2018 at 17:40 | vote | accept | Evan Carroll | ||
| May 23, 2018 at 6:59 | comment | added | RedSonja | The police are obliged to police all big events. If you organise a huge demonstration against the monarchy and attract the same number of attendees, the cost would be the same. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 21:05 | comment | added | DJClayworth | If somebody else would like to write an answer containing the same facts but without the bias, it would probably get upvoted. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 19:38 | comment | added | Evan Carroll | Sure, no doubt -- Harry himself is neither a slave nor serf holder. He's the heir of an estate that was created by slaves and serfs. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 19:35 | comment | added | M. A. Golding | @Evan Carroll Saying that Prince Harry has feudal power or has serfs and comparing him to a slave owner is certainly stretching things. Serfdom was declining in England in the late middle ages and Queen Elizabeth I freed the last remaining serfs in 1574. Slaves in Great Britain were freed in 1774, except for Scottish coal miners freed in 1799. Slavery was abolished in most British territories 1834-40, and in the territories of the East Indian Company in 1843.. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 18:34 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| May 22, 2018 at 18:37 | |||||
| May 22, 2018 at 15:51 | comment | added | Ben Barden | Trying to pull this back on-topic... it remains the case that "the royal family is inherently a mooch on society" is a very strong claim that is also at least somewhat off-topic for the question and has no support at all in the answer itself. It makes the answer worse, and should be removed. If you want a space in which to rant that the royal family is a mooch on society... this is not that space. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 15:29 | comment | added | Evan Carroll | @ceejayoz That's the circular argument. Rich kids were born into wealth because of the feudal status of their family. They have wealth and throw expensive events that others can't and people find that entertaining which makes them "professional entertainers" which for the purposes of this argument means you think they're not mooching: I clearly acknowledged early on "he receives for nothing other than being." You've argued his "being" is "entertainment." | |
| May 22, 2018 at 15:28 | comment | added | Common Guy | @EvanCarroll He provides nothing - as if entertainers or athletes would provide anything... | |
| May 22, 2018 at 15:22 | comment | added | ceejayoz | "The argument is that exceptional viewership makes you an entertainer." No, that's a straw man. It needn't be exceptional, nor need it exceed some other entertainer's draw. American soccer is still "entertainment" even if it pales in viewership to European football. An indie film is still "entertainment" even if The Last Jedi beats its box office record. It is readily demonstrable that the royal wedding was a form of entertainment - even the US media had wall-to-wall coverage, folks held viewing parties, etc. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 15:15 | comment | added | Evan Carroll | No, the argument that people watch the wedding therefore the people who participate in it are entertainers is false if other weddings were more watched. The argument is that exceptional viewership makes you an entertainer. In order to test the claim, we'd have to have equal status bestowed to the family, and the wedding to hold that constant and test for viewership. Unless you're going to argue that simply having wealth makes you an entertainer which makes you deserving of the wealth and therefore not a mooch.... Sounds pretty silly though. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 15:13 | comment | added | Ben Barden | @EvanCarroll your bias is showing. Any time you start saying things like "doing this difficult/impossible/expensive thing is required to have any argument in favor of..." it's pretty clear that you're advocating strongly for the other side. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 14:57 | comment | added | Evan Carroll | Because people watch it? Hard to tell whether that's a solid argument because we can't exactly isolate it. Give any other undeserving family name recognition and billions of dollars of wealth and spend 30 million of public funds for a wedding, see if that gets more less views..? Regardless, that would hardly make that undeserving family public entertainers in my eyes, but I think it would be required to have any argument (never mind a strong one) one way or another in the favor of the prince/monarchy. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 14:44 | comment | added | ceejayoz | @EvanCarroll You could make a pretty solid argument that the British Royal Family are "professional entertainers". Plenty of folks seem to have seen the recent wedding as an entertainment event. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 14:22 | history | edited | DenisS | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 22, 2018 at 14:18 | comment | added | Evan Carroll | @Polygnome Most public events have professional entertainers, or athletes, the Prince is neither. He's the beneficiary of familial feudal status and the serfdom of others. He provides nothing. It's as if a plantation owner is selling tickets to see the art and accomplishments of the slaves. There is no contribution. He doesn't just receive from the public, he receives for nothing other than being. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 13:16 | comment | added | Polygnome | The last paragraph is unnecessarily provocative. Tone it down to be factual. Security of most public events comes from the taxpayer, btw. Soccer games "mooch" in the same way... | |
| May 22, 2018 at 12:30 | comment | added | Daniel R Hicks | @zibadawatimmy - What I'm saying is that, in fairness, the event should be regarded the same as something like a sports event where often much of the cost is footed by government entities. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 11:50 | comment | added | Lag | The "security" wasn't solely for the couple or the famous guests; a large number of the public were expected to show up and they required policing. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 10:05 | history | notice added | Jamiec♦ | Needs citation | |
| May 22, 2018 at 7:01 | comment | added | Jamiec♦ | This comes across as more an anti-monarchy rant than a well researched answer. Specifically if you're going to assert that "The royal family are a mooch on society" that requires some sourcing that the income from the royals is outweighed by their expense. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 5:35 | comment | added | zibadawa timmy | @DanielRHicks But then you open the door to having to account for opportunity costs: just because the wedding was profitable for the government (let's assume that), doesn't mean that it was the most profitable thing that could have been done. It's not even necessarily the most profitable and most popularly uplifting thing. The negative connotations some attach to the Crown Estate are related to these opportunity costs: being profitable doesn't mean being (even remotely close to) optimal, morally or economically. | |
| May 21, 2018 at 21:05 | comment | added | Daniel R Hicks | And probably any accounting should include the "Superbowl effect" where the event (supposedly) generates enormous gains in commercial revenues and subsequent tax receipts. | |
| May 21, 2018 at 20:18 | comment | added | ceejayoz | I'd note that "funding from the public purse" comes largely from the profits from the Crown Estate, which the monarch handed over to the treasury in exchange for said funding. Whether this counts as "mooching" is, as such, hard to assess. | |
| May 21, 2018 at 19:44 | history | edited | Evan Carroll | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 21, 2018 at 19:39 | history | answered | Evan Carroll | CC BY-SA 4.0 |